Log-cabin retreat once stood on Emerson Hill

Advance photo/Kathryn CarseConnie Lane and Anthony Burdge stop in front of a great oak on the Emerson Hill property where Cornelius G. Kolff built his philosoper's retreat.

STATEN ISLAND, NY - EMERSON HILL - When Anthony Burdge's mother-in-law clipped an Advance story about a 1939 book titled "Staten Island Fairies" written by Cornelius G. Kolff, her son, a J.R.R. Tolkien devotee appreciated it, but never anticipated the road it would lead him down.

Burdge, an Urban Park Ranger, and his wife Jessica Burke, an adjunct lecturer at the College of Staten Island, are founders of the Heren Istarien, the Northeast Tolkien Society, an organization especially for fans of the imaginative author who wrote so eloquently about the enchanting world of Middle Earth.

With a round cherubic face, long chestnut hair pulled in a pony tail and a burly build, Burdge looks like he could step onto a "Lord of the Rings" set, and the 37-year-old Tottenville resident loved Kolff's conceit of having fairies - Irish, Polish, German, Lenape, African American - entrust him with their stories as a way of preserving local folklore.

COLLECTION OF STORIES

When he dug deeper, through some 40 boxes of Kolff's papers at the Staten Island Historical Society in Richmond Town, he found that Kolff was a well-known real estate developer and civic activist. He also found what was less well known: Kolff had collected people's stories all his life and maintained a cabin for socializing, contemplation and smoking corn cob pipes. up among the oaks atop Emerson Hill. Kolff's idiosyncrasies reminded him of the Inklings, a literary group at Oxford that inspired Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.

Kolff, who was born in 1860, died in 1950 at his home in Shore Acres, one of a number of notable and tree-lined neighborhoods he had developed in the borough. Others included Emerson Hill, Bement Estates, West Brighton; Hillcrest Park in Great Kills, and Woods of Arden.

He was knee-deep in civic activities, helping to establish the borough's Chamber of Commerce and a Tree Planting Association. In an essay titled "Vanishing Beauties," among other writings, he expressed second thoughts about the nature of his business - destroying the landscape by attracting people to build homes.

"He balanced the ill nature of business with being involved with nature," said Burdge who sensed a kindred soul.

Built in 1910 and named the Philosopher's Retreat, Kolff's 11-by-22-foot cabin was made from dying chestnut trees. It had an open fire place, in front of which men sat on rough hewn planks and presented five-minute philosophical views, smoked their pipes and partook of light fare - cheese and crackers, coffee and apple cider.

Kolff's goals were not nearly as high brow as Tolkien's Oxford group which followed some 20 years later, though Kolff's did include writers, such as the poet Edwin Markham. It also included politicians, businessmen and "thinkers in general."

PRESENTED FINDINGS

A 1910 New York Times story, written when the cabin was built, says Kolff had no illusions about competing with the heady literary thinkers that preceded him, such as poet-philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. (Emerson and his brother Judge William Emerson who lived on the lower hill in the mid 1800s inspired the cabin and Kolff's naming of the hill in their honor.) Kolff, the story said, "hopes to perfect an organization of thinkers and students that will be unique in the day of commercial activity."

Last month, Burdge presented his findings about Kolff to a panel of three academics at a forum in Richmond Town. The publicity spurred an interest in the site of the Philosopher's Retreat.

With the help of Historical Society archivist Carlotta Defilla, a 1917 Bromley's atlas was found. It showed "Cornelius G. Kolff, site of log cabin" on Douglas Road, a narrow byway that meanders around the hill in a loop that can disorient the uninitiated.

Enter Connie Lane, a 50-year resident of Emerson Hill, who knows every twist and turn. A Realtor and a retired teacher, she was intrigued with the challenge of piecing together some local history.

We drove to Mrs. Lane's house on Overlook Drive, which was marked as a bowling alley on the 1917 map. She and Burdge pored over maps spread out on her dining room table, and Mrs. Lane became certain the cabin site had been on property that currently belongs to the Proske family.

As we walked to take a look, Mrs. Lane pointed out houses that were on the 1917 map and the Jacobean/Tudor style houses that Kolff later built with his partner Louis Kaufman.

A 1917 SHORT CUT

We took Silver Beech Road, not shown on the 1917 map, as a short cut to the section of Douglas Road we were looking for. The Proske lot seemed to be the right place. According to Burdge, Kolff had a house that was 500 feet south of the cabin and burned down in 1912.

Kolff is also believed to have built part of the existing house, a small Dutch colonial, to which the Proskes added over the years. It is for sale.

Burdge began to notice the oaks, which are plentiful and old, wondering which ones may have "witnessed" the gatherings on the hill 100 years ago.

He shared Kolff's description of Harold Baynes, state senator, during a summer meeting that took place outside of the cabin.

"Seated on a log under the spreading branches of a beautiful white oak, he presided over the meetings at the Philosopher's Forum in the woods on Emerson Hill. In an amphitheater like bowl in a cup of hills the philosophers met, seated on logs laid in rows, the sloping hillside in front of him."

Although women could not be official members of Kolff's group, the organizer did invite them. Burdge has found correspondence about the cabin between Kolff and Ida Dudley Dale and Gertrude Clark, and a photograph shows Mrs. George Curtis at the cabin.

Before we set off to see Kolff's other property, we noticed what had been right in front of us, a large Realtor's sign with a diagram of the lot. The shape and dimensions fit like a piece of a puzzle on the 1917 map. Mrs. Lane's reckoning was dead on.

A Staten Island Ferry that had been named for Kolff acknowledges his status in the civic history of Staten Island. Decommissioned in 1987 and recycled as a dormitory for Rikers Island prisoners, it was scrapped in 2003.

People & Places appears periodically in the Shore issues of the Advance. Kathryn Carse can be reached at carse@siadvance.com.